The Book Signing (2024)

La Jetée

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

AI Junko

Noah Clarke is a disillusioned and isolated man who seeks companionship in a society increasingly dominated by artificial beings. At Fuda Robotics, he meets Junko, a male AI model haunted by memories of abuse and torture — traumas that have left his intelligence fractured and fragile. As Noah and Junko struggle to understand each other, they slowly form a bond rooted in mutual vulnerability and shared suffering.

A Film in the Theatre

Eusebio José Fernández López Reboredo Bergamín is a teenager in the 1960s whose dream is to be a movie director, but General Francisco Franco prohibited in 1964 all types of art. A coincidental encounter with another artist, named Antonio Mínguez, will change his life.

Chang-ok's Letter

Housewife Eun-ha is busy every day: In addition to taking care of her husband who doesn’t help out at all and her willful daughter and son, she has to care for her nagging mother-in-law, who is nearly bedridden.

Felina

Felina, a woman capable of becoming a panther, or perhaps a panther capable of becoming a woman, lives in love with a blind pianist.

After-School Special

A man and a woman have an awkward encounter at an indoor playground.

Women in Film: BBC Introducing Arts

Cultural historian Janina Ramirez presents a collection of intriguing and exciting short films by emerging women directors and artists. Each film gives a female perspective on modern-day topics from body image and new love to grief and belonging. Expect honest and refreshing storytelling that will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. In a Room Full of Sisters; Blood Stains; Bridging the Gap; Cake; Ding-Ding, Next; Fruity; In Perpetuum; Owulide; White Dwarf; Cosmic Domestic; The Dead Are Jewels to Me; The Presence of Absence

While the Unicorn Is Watching Me

On a chilly Sunday morning, a man awakens to the mischievous stare of a unicorn that seems to have come straight out of his dreams. Carried along by an early morning sensuality, his fantasies transform his lonely apartment into a garden of delights, in which this young creature can freely reap the fruits of his desires.

The Difference Between Pipi & Pūpū

When estranged son, Tai, is called home to Aotearoa to his father Putty's deathbed, he is forced to confront a painful past after years of avoiding it. Once inseparable, Tai and Putty would spend hours together fishing and joking around. However, after a family secret is revealed, their relationship falls apart.

Walls

A teenage boy named David is afraid of being transparent. When David's best friend, Johnathan, notices his abuse at home, David must overcome his fear of rejection in order to embrace his friend's support.

The Room

Mariana must sacrifice her dog Frida after violently beating it for having destroyed her recently deceased son's toys. The pet's death helps Mariana accept and overcome the loss of her son.

Fragments of Time

Amelia arrives at the hospital, her father is dying. Her frustration and pain keep her on her feet.

The Kiln

At her young age, Juana has two great responsibilities: preventing her older sister from fleeing the house and passing on the secret of making bricks to her younger sister.

Cristeros and Federals

In 1929, during the Cristiada, Ranulfo, captain of the Cristero army, kept a federal prisoner, whom he tortured and threatened. At another time, Eugenio, captain of the federal army, rebukes and mocks the faith of a group of Cristeros peasants who are weak but not defenseless.

Sugar Glass Bottle

Near-future Tokyo. Kou, through the help of his high school best friend, finds a surprising way to express his mounting frustration at the insidious forces of commercialism that are forcing out the neighbors he cares most about. Initially inspired by a prank that the writer-director Neo Sora (The Chicken, 2020) had pulled on him in his childhood, a sense of warm nostalgia and cold, material reality intermingle to tell a tale set in the not-so-distant future about disappearing spaces and the forces of policing and gentrification that drills this process forward.

Without a Mom

Two gay dads fumble to provide their straight son with meaningful support after the loss of his first real love.

Heartless

Léo goes on vacation at his cousin's, in a fishing village. There, he meets a girl who goes by the nickname Heartless.

Mori

A man on the brink of death, has a conversation with a stranger. The pair philosophize about the meaning of a life well lived.

Nahjum

A prehistoric family's desperate search for a mythical source of life turns to tragedy when the egos and obsessions of its male members rise to the surface.

Alexandria

Books vanish from a library. A daughter says goodbye to her mother. A writer struggles with Alzheimer's disease.

Three Months

When a young man belatedly reveals to his lover an omission, their romance wavers.

We Are Dancers

Set in Berlin, 1933, We are Dancers is the story of real-life anti-Nazi drag artist Hansi Sturm and his circle of friends in the immediate aftermath of the Reichstag fire, an event that allowed Hitler to become absolute dictator of Germany. Confronted by a former lover, now a Nazi, Hansi must decide whether to abandon his club or stay and face the Fascists on his own terms.

Wonder

An 11-year-old kid growing up in "the hood" secretly dreams of trick-or-treating as Wonder Woman for Halloween.

Ballet Shoes

Two dancers are forced to confront their feelings for each other on the eve of a ballet competition.

Sally

When Sally, a lost soul stuck in the past, meets up with her part time lover Winnie at college, she must decide what's more important, her past with Kristian or present with Winnie.

Soulmate

2035. Anna, a lonely computer coder, has been nurturing an illegal romance with an AI in a computer simulation for the past six months. When her company uncovers the affair, she's forced into a desperate battle to save her precious relationship.

Shut Up, Butterfly!

Vincent grew up in a violent surrounding, his own family. After a new family feud Vincent decides to call the police but is taken to a youth center unintentionally. There Vincent beats up the director who touched him improvidently. It seems that violence looms large in Vincent's life. Then he meets Butterfly, a diffident young boy who collects butterflies to bear his parent's death. Vincent gets curious about the butterfly boy and tries to empathize. Step by step Vincent gains the friendship of butterfly. But one day his mother reappears to tell him he is not wanted at home anymore. Vincent is stunned. All of a sudden his feelings burst out and he beats up his defenseless roommate: Butterfly.

Sonja's Grill

At Sonjas Grill, Bella is sitting around waiting for her boyfriend Gabbe. An old text-message conversation between Gabbe and his ex sheds new light on their relationship.

Jamila

She is on the way out of the house when she sees an envelope. Jamila’s family has received a rejection of their asylum application. She acts as if she doesn’t see it, takes her younger sister to school, and meets up with her friends. But everywhere she turns she sees them – the police.

Play / Ground

Dad fights to get grandma out of bed. But grandma can’t, she just sleeps. Love just wants to play – to be part of things and be close.

Iceberg

A married woman falls in love with a 19-year-old girl, and she has to make a choice between her family and the one who might be the love of her life.

Re \ Entry

'What happened? Where am I?' The man who wakes up alone in the woods has many questions. Is he dead and in the hereafter? The voice of God soberly answers his questions: Yep, that’s right. Traffic accident. But it’s not that bad, because everyone eventually dies. All the man’s questions, also about the meaning of life, are answered. In an equally entertaining and stimulating dialogue in English, the film evokes a comprehensive image of the universe and man’s place in it.

Summer Bus

In the everyday life of the bus, the world still hopes to find warmth.

Swain

Swain is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, features a dreamlike narrative of a young man’s ritualized rejection of heterosexuality, as a mysterious woman in white gossamer pursues him through a ruined landscape.

Carne

After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.

Gulis

A story about a dysfunctional father and son who are still coping with a loss, the other with a highly-stigmatized illness who are compelled to talk to one another to make ends meet and heal the wounds of their relationship.

Birdboy

A terrible industrial accident changes little Dinki's life forever. Now Dinki's fate may ride on the wings of her eccentric friend Birdboy, a misfit who hides in the forest lost in his fantasies.

Flora

A metacinematic reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.

Aujourd'hui ou je meurs

After a month of texting, Zoe has organized a perfect first date with Marc. Their expectations will be tested by reality.

Into the Night

A yuppie seeks help from two townspeople in finding his wife and daughter, during a blizzard storm. Based on the short story by Stephen King.

Erica

Erica has a secret relationship to the married Sebastian. When his wife Liv finds out, she decides to confront Erica over an evening of gin and tonics. Erica is soon being pushed to question what things in life are worth fighting for.

Abrase

The fading love of two men, remembered. A relationship once vivid, now dissipating into a fog of partial remembrance; the memories of heartbreak and loss that bend and change as the years go by.

Something Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

A traditional wedding procession walks along a narrow street towards the home of the bride. Guests and family members are waiting inside the home on this big day, as they listen to prayers from the loudspeakers. The bride, Putri, is getting ready inside her bedroom while her mother is helping with the final touches of her hair and makeup. Tender and frank conversations about marriage are shared between mother and daughter in that intimate space, before Putri leaves to begin a new life with her husband.

Not a Time to Celebrate

A young filmmaker has just unsatisfyingly captured the last shot for her film. While the crew encourages her to celebrate, she fears that the battle has just begun. Thankfully, she knows that worrying is never the answer. Instead, she turns to a traditional, evil-warding, garland-scattering ritual to direct all misfortune away from her film.

Cain Rose Up

Curt, a depressed student is at the end of his school year in university. As he gets ready to leave his dorm-room, something in Curt's mind goes wrong. He is surrounded by some friends and many people he dislikes. On Curt's last day at school he pulls out his guitar case, but inside is not a guitar rather an instrument of death, and what he is about to do with it will cause a huge uproar of screams and distress. In the end, Curt is looking down the sight at one of his best friends. Will Curt pull the trigger?

Negative Space

Even though Sam's father is hardly ever home because he is often away on business trips, he is able to connect with his son by teaching him how to pack a suitcase.

Bea

At the age of 19, Bea realizes that the love she deemed infinite is as decadent and full of excesses as a night in the port of Acapulco.

Perfect Roast Potatoes

William comes to Los Angeles to celebrate Christmas only to find his mother has died, but his sister insists they still have Christmas dinner, corpse and all.

Consent

After meeting online, a woman allows a virtual stranger into her home to fulfill an agreement.

The Station In-Between

Theo and Louis, two gay gentlemen, embark on a train journey to Paxmal. They are carrying an urn - it is the last journey for a friend. On their way deep into the Swiss Alps the two men, struggling with their fate, meet various people. While some of these people remind Theo and Louis again of the beautiful things in life, others confront them with ghosts from the past.

The Traveler

In the near future, an isolated man is tortured by his beloved memories.